It's really not personal
Why you shouldn't let emotions run your business
Thursday, February 18 2010 || Comment || BY James Crow
It's to be expected personal emotion will exist in a business environment and for the most part this is a good thing. Positive emotions can give rise to a motivation to succeed, help others, and, in larger companies, work to move up the career ladder, while negative emotions can see people lie, cheat, become angry and generally react to situations in ways that are not genuinely motivated by common sense or good business practices.
In a small startup business where a huge amount of the work has been done by a person or small group of people, personal emotion has been there since day one. These emotions got them excited enough to start the business in the first place. It kept them going in the tough times and pushed their business ideas forward. But like the solid fuel cells a spaceship uses to jettison itself into space, personal emotions in business must be discarded when their usefulness has been exhausted.
This fundamental misunderstanding of how personal emotions can affect business and its management sees the rise of almost all arguments, employment issues and partnership break-ups and seems to be where many small businesses begin to fail while so many large companies survive.
To allow your business (or even work life in general) to thrive, a line must be drawn between how people act and react in business compared with how they do in everyday life. Put simply, it needs to be understood that 'it's not personal". In line with this statement managers and bosses also need to be aware of what the motivation for their decisions are and decide whether they are in the best interests of business or their own egos.
To use a limited liability company as an example: a company is, in essence a separate entity to any person, with liabilities limited to only what the company does. By that same definition a company can not feel offended, embarrassed, angered or ridiculed. This is not to say people can't make these assertions, but they will have no emotional impact on the company because the company has no emotions. In large companies 'personal emotions' are curtailed at multiple levels through the use of middle management, HR departments, in-house lawyers, complaints departments, personal secretaries and so on. In smaller businesses, however, most of these buffers do not exist and the day-to-day reality of the boss having to deal with the lowliest and often most emotionally charged members of a business or its customers are certain.
For a boss, manager or leader to successfully control the direction a business takes, there must be a conscious disconnect made so that each and every business decision is made using only logical, lateral thought. In doing this each decision will be made on its commercial merits alone and not be muddled by what someone said around a water cooler or was read between the lines in an email. To follow this simple approach is to rise above the basic emotional level and the freedom this will give you to consciously control your business instead of following your emotions will see only positive progress in the long run.
If ever in doubt, just remember to ask yourself 'will this decision help me reach my end goal or is there a more emotive driven factor?' and always tell yourself 'it's really not personal'.
James Crow is the Auckland-based entrepreneur behind Pot of Gold skin balm. He blogs about life as a startup entrepreneur each week for Unlimited.
Hi James
I'm not sure if I am on the same page with you or not. I didn't agree with the blog post, but having read your reply to Tara's comment maybe.
People have a yearning, and a growing expectation for business to be "more personal". Most of the people I work with will spend more time with me in an average week than they do their kids or their spouse so they expect an environment that honours them and the rest of their life.
Try this test. Tell someone "sorry you longer have a job, but it's not personal ...". In this case this is something we say to make ourselves feel better, but it is obviously personal to the personal on the receiving end of the dismissal.
If what you are saying is that for business to succeed we must stay present in our interactions and maintain a professional interaction where all parties take responsibility for what they say, and for how they react then I agree.
To that however I would say, many people would benefit by practicing those behaviours in the rest of their lives too. Good communication is a good skill in life generally not just business.
Anyway thanks for your blog posts. All the best
Stephen
Posted by Stephen Baugh at 09:30 on February 22, 2010
Hi Stephen,
Its a broad subject that I have only touched on. Also from the responses so far I can see I will be touching on it more in the future.
People will always have a hard time walking the line between caring boss and successful boss but you did however nail the core of what I am saying in your fourth paragraph. "If what you are saying is that for business to succeed we must stay present in our interactions and maintain a professional interaction where all parties take responsibility for what they say, and for how they react then I agree."
I agree also and thanks for your comments to this discussion.
Posted by James at 12:01 on February 22, 2010
I agree with the basic tenor of all these thoughts. But I's like to add that I think its all about balance. If you take the personal out of business then what you end up with is a machine that is not responsible for its actions. A company is a separate legal entity but humans drive it. Humans have to invest energy and emotion into that business to prevent it becominmg a monster with no empathy and no conscience. Everything is always about the right balance. Things are not black and white, they are various shades of grey. Sometimes you have to place more weight on the rational side, sometimes more on the emotional. Hopefully, when the emotional side is engaged it is more positive emotion than negative. But sometimes thought that give rise to negative emotion is essential. I agree that negative emotion should be minimised as much as possible. Cheers.
Posted by Marc at 09:11 on February 22, 2010
Hi Marc
Your actually beating me to the subject of my next post.
Stay tuned.
Posted by James at 08:40 on February 22, 2010
The only way biz cannot be personal is if the humans are removed. I have to disagree with the overall premise as I believe it's a philosophy that has proven to be detrimental to business success.
However I think what you're really saying is that dealing effectively with the myriad emotions that the humans 'doing' biz encounters for themselves personally and the other people they have to interact with is a challenge that will deliver if mastered.
Biz is fraught with emotion as its often a grueling and difficult thing to grow a biz as we continue to come up against our own limitations (and the limitations of others) in achieving what we want.
I'm more interested in hearing what will really support the effective mastery of these emotions and fortunately science, in particular neuroscience, is enabling an effective understanding to support that outcome.
Biz is about humans so humans need to master themselves as the key to mastering their biz.
Posted by Tara at 01:58 on February 19, 2010
Hi Tara,
First can I say thanks for taking the time to comment and open a discussion about my column.
Essentially I think we are on the same page. Where we seem to go our separate ways however is the term "it's not personal". The way I was intending to use the saying had more to do with the negative emotions that people can fall into when they take issues in business too much to heart. This clouds judgment and in turn can affect the quality of the decision made while in that frame of mind. This does not in any way mean they should not be excited, love what they are doing or be passionate about the business.
The problem I see all too often in struggling businesses is that people will allow their negative emotions to rule over their decision making instead of basing choices on sound business practices.
My tips to mastering this complicated issue is to always maintain a high level of self confidence. Know that no one can affect the running of your business but you, and never allow the control of a situation to shift to someone who is trying to insult, attack or attempt induce these negative emotions. Laugh it off, have a cup of tea and remember it's really not personal.
Posted by James at 08:27 on February 19, 2010
Hi James,
I find your comments about Tara's insight interesting in that you are unable to notice that you are actually on different pages!
If we pretend that emotions are not there they tend to go underground and have a habit of popping up with greater strength when they are less wanted.
I agree with your basic premise that when we react to a situation from a personal emotional habit, it is unlikely to get us the result we want. We tend to take the issue as a personal attack. However without developing greater insight into understanding our emotive responses and changing the cause of that emotive reaction - we haven't changed anything.
As you mentioned, a positive attitude is very powerful. What is more powerful is understanding what creates our emotions and then realising the choice we have available to be truly authentic in all our relationships. This takes more than just motivational coaching.
Posted by Roger at 09:16 on February 22, 2010
Ah the muddy game of life eh?
What an interesting discussion :) Everyone is right I reckon...
The unfortunate thing about having people in business is you never really know what they are going to do. That includes the owners!
When we look at the structure of our society and see that we indoctrinate our children from a very young age that there are rights and wrongs and painful consequences for getting things wrong, it isn't surprising that when these same children grow up and enter the workforce, they will do what ever it takes to assert why they are not wrong because of an unconcious fear of a painful consequence. Perhaps this is why performance management discussions in workplaces tend to be fraught with misunderstandings (coupled with that, a person finds it difficult to ever forgive if they feel their worthiness has been questioned). So it really is personal because it will be taken that way. What a shame people use "it isn't personal" to not have to take the time to show a little dignity.
I think we are better to focus on improving our communication skills and personal responsibility. This way we can walk the talk and help eachother achieve what is really important to each of us.
I think a business is an entity and it probably has feelings (or a feel to it), people should either get aligned to it or get out of it. Those who align will be happy because they will be able to achieve beyond their own expectations, and those who aren't or can't, can find happiness elsewhere... the difference being, the employer can take responsibility for the wrong selection choice and can communicate with the employee so they can discover what they're looking for.
Clear as mud? Probably, because most employers don't even know what they really stand for... they don't really live the values they have on their walls or haven't defined them. If the employers know what they stand for and live their values, chances are they don't have any problems, they're all far too busy helping eachother achieve what is individually and collectively important and they probably love learning too, as a company and individually.
Posted by Ranald Hendriks at 11:03 on February 22, 2010
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